{"id":10307,"date":"2019-05-24T19:25:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T19:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=10307"},"modified":"2019-05-24T19:25:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-24T19:25:00","slug":"texas-moves-to-bring-clarity-to-drug-pricing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=10307","title":{"rendered":"Texas Moves to Bring Clarity to Drug Pricing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Will more transparency about drug pricing help drive down costs for Texas consumers, or add expenses for the drug companies that have to comply? Photo: Gang\/Adobe Stock<\/p><\/div>\n

by Mary Schuermann Kuhlman<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Texas \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0Texas lawmakers are showing overwhelming support so far for legislation that AARP says would be one of the strongest drug-price transparency measures in the country.<\/p>\n

House Bill 2536<\/a>\u00a0is in the hands of a Senate committee after passing the House without opposition. It calls for drug manufacturers, pharmacy benefit managers and health benefit plans to provide certain drug-cost information to be shared on a public, state website.<\/p>\n

Blake Hutson, associate state director of AARP Texas, said the state would have to be notified if the wholesale price of a drug increased more than 10% in a year, or more than 40% over five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cDrugs are increasing 15% to 16% every year. After four years goes by, that drug\u2019s just about doubled in cost. Insulin medications, they\u2019ve all gone up roughly 80% or 90% in the last four years,\u201d Hutson said. \u201cSo, it\u2019s a big problem for Texans, and it\u2019s really impacting their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hutson said the measure would clarify how much of a drug\u2019s cost is advertising and marketing, as well as research and development. A late amendment added to the bill requires even more data to be collected from drug manufacturers. Opponents have pointed out that complying with stringent transparency laws also is a cost for the manufacturers that will affect drug prices.<\/p>\n

With less than 10 days left in the legislative session, Hutson is hopeful the momentum from the House helps move the bill quickly in the Senate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of interests that may not like to see this bill move, including pharmaceutical companies, but it came out of the House with a ton of bipartisan support,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Trump administration and bipartisan folks in Congress are all in support of prescription drug price transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the federal level, a new rule will take effect this summer that requires drug companies to include the list price in their television commercials of drugs that cost more than $35 for a month\u2019s supply. So far, seven states have enacted drug-transparency laws.<\/p>\n

The text of HB 2536 is online at\u00a0capitol.texas.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mary Schuermann Kuhlman AUSTIN, Texas \u2013\u00a0Texas lawmakers are showing overwhelming support so far for legislation that AARP says would be one of the strongest drug-price transparency measures in the country. House Bill 2536\u00a0is in the hands of a Senate committee after passing the House without opposition. It calls for drug manufacturers, pharmacy benefit managers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10309,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10307\/revisions\/10309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}